I like him better now

The struggle is real (but it's all good)

   This morning, even though there is a pile of other things to do, I closed the door and tried to pick up the thread of this piece. Except for this area, it is pretty much resolved (which is far different that being finished).

     I always struggle with 3/4 views, and I have two of them in this piece. Now that I see it here, I think I need to work on making the man's head not too parallel to the mom's. I should probably start adding pastel to the medium list for my paintings, because the drawing I do with it ends up being part of the color applied to it. 

    The other thing I'm struggling with is that I took so much care to keep the paint layers thin that now, I'm having trouble getting those thin layers to adhere to the surface. I'm considering spraying it with varnish to seal it a bit. I'll probably float the idea with my posse and see what they say.

   Anyway, it's all good. An update up the Tubman project is coming soon.

The First Batch

   I'm so proud of these guys. These are three of the images made by my students that I'm planning to send in for publication of the program for The Journey of Harriet event in March. The top one is by Jesse, the middle one by Dex and the last one by Haley. 

   So, even though I only get to walk by my painting and rub the belly of the mama like she was a lucky Buddha, it's all good.

The Logic of Stencils

   For the Harriet Tubman Project, my classes are designing silhouettes based on the life story of HT. My intention is to have them design their images as stencils, and then we will print them on boards.  
      We have a wonderful new machine that will cut the stencils for us; the Silhouette Cameo 3. There is a bit of a learning curve to make it work, both in the design process and in learning how to use the machine, but we are all making progress.
    On the left is a double sized cut from one of my students' thumbnails from last class, and on the right is one of my own images.
    The student's work is pretty close. It has some design issues and it needs to be blown up and cleaned up, but this one gives me hope that this will actually work.
    I'm counting my image a success as well, even though instead of a silhouette, it is a line drawing/cut, and I lost some areas during the process. But, I'm really impressed with how fine the lines are, and it would just take another session of making the image fit the logic of stencils  (all negative areas have to connect somehow; no islands!) to make it work. Also, next time I might make the lines cut a little thicker. Right now, I'm not so sure the ink/paint will have enough of an opening to make a mark in some areas.
    Tomorrow, I'll try to print both of them a la poupee, which means dabbing the paint into the openings of the stencil.
    I will confess that it's a bit of a relief to get this far with this much success.

Better

At least now she has a neck!

Scored a Couple of Gigs For My Students

   A few days ago I mentioned that my students will be making silhouettes with Harriet Tubman as the subject. I found out this week that their work will be part of the printed program for the Harriet Tubman event we are preparing for, and will also be used in a couple of ways during the She Persisted exhibit next fall, in honor of the anniversary of the 19th Amendment. We have a lot of work to do, but we are going to hit the ground running and do our best. We are very lucky to have this opportunity. I will post our progress.

Some Changes

   I'm not sure what came over me, but after all that time being happy with the mother having no face, I decided to add one after all. I've flipped back and for between this image and the last one I posted (there were quite a few intermediate versions) and I'm still not sure which one I like best.

     This is in a bit of a tricky spot, because I don't have a direct reference shot for the top third of the painting. I don't mind winging, but I worry that the styles between the two parts won't match.

      I also don't exactly know what the man will look like yet, either. But, I'm making progress, one session at a time.